Sir Ian Blair Plus 'CSI' Equals Justice for Stephen Lawrence

UNDER FIRE Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair could receive a boost with news of a breakthrough in the Stephen Lawrence case.

Lawrence, then 18, was murdered fourteen years ago, but his killers never punished due to, police said at the time, lack of evidence.

Mistakes in the investigation led to the Macpherson Inquiry, which was often scathing in its analysis of a police force riddled with racism: Lawrence was black, his killers thought to be white.

It was Blair who re-opened the case earlier this year and that decision now looks to have been vindicated as it appears new techniques might finally bring Lawrence's killers to justice. Those techniques, like something out of CSI, involve finding tiny fragments of cloth that can give clues to detectives.

In this case it seems police, as reports today's Daily Mail, have now matched fibres found on Lawrence's body to fibres found on clothes belonging to the prime suspects for the murder, a gang of five boys, now in their 30s. The gang of five could now face a re-trial.

"We have tried many times before, but if we manage to get justice for Stephen this time, it would make me really, really happy," said Lawrence's father, Neville.